Should we poke the bear or poke the tiger? Why not both? On the same day that Joe Biden went to Ukraine, a congressional delegation was touching down in Taiwan to visit with governmental and industry leaders. Now both Moscow and Beijing have something new to complain about.

The bipartisan delegation to Taiwan was a small one and did not include the new Speaker of the House. Democrats Ro Khanna, Jake Auchincloss, and Jonathan Jackson were joined by Texas Republican Tony Gonzales. Khanna and Auchincloss are both members of the new House select committee studying economic competition with China and all four of them are working on expanding America’s semiconductor industry. They are meeting with Taiwanese leaders of that industry during the trip. (Associated Press)

A delegation of U.S. lawmakers met with the head of Taiwan’s legislature on Monday as part of a five-day visit to the self-ruled island that comes as U.S.-China relations remain tense after weeks of trading accusations over a spy balloon.

The delegation that arrived Sunday includes Reps. Ro Khanna of California, Tony Gonzales of Texas, Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts and Jonathan Jackson of Illinois.

They are expected to meet President Tsai Ing-wen as well as business people. On Monday, they held talks with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s founder Morris Chang, considered the father of the island’s chip industry.

Khanna tried to play down the expected backlash from the Chinese over this trip, telling reporters that the visit is “in no way provocative of China.” He went on to emphasize that the United States is still “seeking ultimately, peace in the region.” I somehow doubt Xi Jinping will see it that way.

You Si-kun, the head of Taiwan’s legislature, was far less reserved in his remarks. He was responding to a recent statement issued by a Chinese foreign policy official who said that Taiwan “has never been a country and will not be a country in the future.”

“China ignores historical fact and claims to have sovereignty over Taiwan. Taiwan has already become an independent sovereign nation … Taiwan has never been ruled by the People’s Republic of China for a single day,” You said.

Mr. You’s comments are precisely the type of provocation that we’ve been trying to avoid with our complicated policy regarding Taiwan. The United States has long maintained that we support the “One China” policy while treating Taiwan as an allied nation in all but name. Having a senior Taiwanese official come out and openly declare that they are “an independent, sovereign nation” is just the type of declaration that may eventually push China toward military action if only to save face.

Only a few years ago, I would have said that China is mostly putting its own spin on the Taiwan situation and they would never dare to openly invade the island. The economic damage they would certainly experience in response from the global community would be too great. But then again, I really didn’t think Russia would invade Ukraine either, so what do I know?

As we’ve discussed here on more occasions than I can count, we are not ready for a war with China and we won’t be until we can get the arms industry back up to wartime production levels. And that will likely take several years. But we need to be ready to face the possibility that we’ll be fighting a proxy war on two fronts if China does cross the strait in the next year or two. We simply can’t rule out that possibility.